In computer and telecommunications networks, presence information is defined as a status indicator that conveys status data, such as availability, activities, and physical location, of a presentity. A presentity is defined as an entity described by presence information. A presentity usually refers to a human (a user), but can also refer to a group of users. A presentity provides presence information to a presence service that runs on a presence server. The presence service stores the presence information in a presence information database (also interchangeably referred to herein as a store).
The process wherein the presence service collects presence information is termed aggregation. In addition, the presence service distributes presence information to entities called watchers, wherein a watcher is defined as an entity (a user) that requests information about a presentity from a presence service. A watcher can subscribe to presence information from a presence service by requesting notification from the presence service; and in such a case, the watcher is referred to as a subscriber. Alternatively, a watcher may fetch presence information from a presence service by simply requesting the current value of a presentity's presence information; and in such a case, the watcher is referred to as a fetcher. Oftentimes, a presence server is a centralized server running a presence service, which authorizes a presentity, and stores (or saves) the presentity's presence information in a centralized database. Moreover, the presence service authorizes a watcher, and retrieves (or gets) presence information from the centralized database before forwarding the presence information to the watcher. However, in deployments where the presence server aggregates presence information of a user across a varied set of applications, some part of the user's presence information may comprise information that is relevant and common to all contributing applications (which thus defines “common” presence information) while the other may be viewed as application specific (which thus defines application specification presence information).
For example, a police officer's availability and physical location is relevant to all applications that are running on a dispatcher's computer and the police officer's computer or device, and can, thus, be deemed as common presence information. To the contrary, the application specific presence information is only relevant to a specific application. For instance, for a job-ticketing application, a user's completion status for a particular job ticket or an enumeration of the various job tickets that a user is currently working on may be viewed as application specific presence information.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method and apparatus to partition presence information into common and application specific presence information and to store and manage access to this presence information.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative other elements to help improve understanding of various embodiments. In addition, the description and drawings do not necessarily require the order illustrated. It will be further appreciated that certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence while those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required.
Apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the various embodiments so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein. Thus, it will be appreciated that for simplicity and clarity of illustration, common and well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment may not be depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments.